


To Feel Alive

by ashfire



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 03, hiatus rambles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 09:36:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4216719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashfire/pseuds/ashfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity learns that content mornings are never a given, and her rested mind takes its sweet time catching up to life—hers and theirs. (Post-S3)</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Feel Alive

**Author's Note:**

> So I found myself in Felicity's head last night, and that gave me enough juice for an Arrow fic despite my previous assertions of how unlikely that would be. So ride with me on this un-beta'd exploration of the transition as Felicity learns to slow down despite the freight train that is now her life.

Felicity curses the hot bed as she nuzzles the cooler side of the sheets. There is a throbbing pain behind her eyes, not helped in the least by the dull, caustic tang in the air. As she rolls to face the large window across the room, the sparse light making its way through her tightly shut eyelids, her dry throat and damp back aren’t very helpful either.

Since she last awoke without a comfortably warm presence beside her, more than a week ago now, she has forgotten how the same clammy heat feels unbearable without someone to share it. It’s just her luck that it’s worse when she can’t bear it anyway.

She rubs her eye as she chokes on a sigh, sitting up with one hand. “Oliver?” she croaks out, her throat more parched than it had been after she unceremoniously lost consciousness on a dungeon floor. At the lack of a cheery response, she can only hope that he has the sense to avoid a jungle run after his wholly unappealing rash from last time.

Sloppily sliding off the bed, she pads over to the balcony doors. She relishes in the warm gust of wind as she opens them, letting it wash over her bare skin and dry out at least some of the sweat. The still air is unlike any she has seen in her two leisurely weeks at this ostentatious palace of a family vacation home.

Unruly thieves or not, the robins seem to agree with her on this one. They cheekily fill the uncanny silence left by the overcast humidity and the lake water’s refusal to move. She shivers despite herself, and blankets her torso with her arms.

The scarce evidence of Oliver ever having been in the room—his belt hanging from the door, the plaid green shirt neatly folded on the chair, her haphazardly removed clothes from yesterday now cleaned up off the floor and placed on the dresser—is no relief. She furrows her brow at the curious failure of her torn crop top to conjure up any images. The appropriately-nicknamed nighttime adventures of yesterday have gone hazy. That’s new.

After a chill runs up her spine as a light breeze picks up, the stupid wool shirt becomes an attractive option. Putting it on and sitting to stare out at the dark morning, she finds the ornate black armchair facing the balcony as plush as ever. She ignores the heat as she starts sweating against its back, pulling the shirt tighter against herself. A flash of the industrial, plastic chair she had curled into in a painfully real moment not three weeks ago has her reeling. She puts it out of mind and wills her brain to work.

The four-year development plan for Palmer Tech she approved (drafted herself, but still) before resigning is likely in its first stages of implementation. With the complete lack of official communication from them in her mail, Ray likely has the explosion situation more or less under control and is holed up in a lab somewhere. That is still a distinct possibility. Her mother obviously still has no clue what happened in Starling; she hasn’t called. The water must be warm, so it seems like a good day to convince Oliver to go for a dive ( _literally_ ; be good, brain) with that scuba gear in the garage. And if they’re going to enter the garage, they might as well make use of those rusty old bicycles on the stand…

When willing her phone to fly into her hand proves unsuccessful, she begrudgingly drags her feet to the bedside table, tapping away with her thumbs and flopping back onto the bed. She quirks an eyebrow as she finds all of her notifications already dismissed. It’s not entirely encouraging. John has called twice in quick succession before dawn and has sent a clarifying text an hour later. He notes that he evidently didn’t disturb her, and that Tebow (Oliver’s petulant insistence on stumbling over Tertiary Biometric Override Wizard is still endless fun) may want to tell them that he has done his job _before_ the twitchy young ones start breaking the midnight shift’s fingers. Well, it isn't a terrible idea.

Her faint smile drops as she catches the black chair out of the corner of her eye. It looks cleaner, _f_ _itting_  without an occupant, and the balcony rapidly becomes frigid.

 

* * *

 

As she descends the well-greased wooden steps that never fail to make her slip, the trace of rubbing alcohol fades into the smoky odor of burnt cheese and toast. Somehow, this stench is less pungent. Her headache lessens considerably at the repetition of yesterday morning’s failure. Oliver doesn’t give up on his lack of breakfast skills, apparently, because _of course he doesn’t_. Every morning is an adventure in flavor, and a test of her devotion to preserving his adorably hopeful look as she washes down the unmistakable taste of wood with effervescent tap water. That particular one still eludes her: how can a man cook perfectly delectable meals at all other times (when he does, that is), yet fail to keep toast unburnt and breakfast free of inexplicable flavors?

She leans against the wall and takes him in as if it is her first time. This may well be his fifth-or-so attempt, but his shoulders are relaxed and his hands move without purpose as he waits for the bread to heat. His hand draws her attention as it scratches at the apex of his healing brand and moves up to rest on the hair atop his head that is growing out to a satisfactory length (“The Oliver”) painfully slowly.

(She fruitlessly tries to stop herself from imagining the tremor in his voice as he had explained its origin to her, giving her every moment and every thought of those three weeks like the words were begging to be spoken—like he _knew_ how she wanted to absorb it all with the same passion as him.

But the ghosts do rear their heads regardless, and all she can do is accept them. Even when it's ugly, or cruel, or misunderstood, all they can do is let them bring them together.

Because ironic as it may be, they’re done running.)

Shifting on her feet, she rolls her eyes at the half-wasted loaf of bread and chuckles as they land on the trampled smoke detector in the corner.

Oliver’s ears seem to move like an eager Husky (not that he’ll hear it from her anytime soon) as he turns his big head, her nearly inaudible, breathy laugh unable to escape them. He apologizes for the bleach but points out that wine stains don’t just disappear on demand. She isn’t willing to argue on that one—she did break the bottle.

His jaw clenches and there’s a flash of _something_ in his eyes, and she is surprised by how rapidly her own throat tightens. His sigh is muted. “Did it wake you?”

She thinks better of mentioning how his tank top is still sticking to his back, and how his wrinkled toes have undoubtedly been held in damp socks for hours. “Don’t think so.” She smirks, “Should it have, or were you planning on doing that with well and truly grilled cheese?”

Her grin only grows wider when he looks at her with such adoration, that stupid hopeful look in his eyes again, that she forgets how utterly comical all of this is in light of how they’ve lived their lives thus far. As his shoulders ever-so-slightly fall, his chest broad with long overdue pride, he wears himself easy and open like he never could on that first day—the day it all came crashing down. Now, he beams at her as if he doesn’t notice the charred bread under the melted cheese, as if she doesn’t resemble an asymmetric, sweat-drenched, bedhead monster of bad breath.

(She is slightly startled by a memory of the face-splitting grin staring back at her from across the mirror in her office's ladies room. It is the gaze of the woman from a mere fortnight ago staring back, with a bit more clear skies and ocean blue this time, that surprises her once again.

And suddenly, the sunshine on those twin whirlpools is all the Sun she needs on a lazy morning.)

“Give me some time,” he finally murmurs with such fierce certainty that her heart melts and soars all at once, “and you might forget you ever had to live without my breakfast.”

The defiance and reverence in his words strike the same chord that they do whenever he insists on being unsure of whether she would ever want to come with him. Brain turns into a tongue-tied mush pretty fast after that.

_Wow_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, kudos, and/or critiques feed my soul. No, really. Drop in for anything and everything you feel strongly about. I can take it ;)


End file.
